The Wonders We Seek
by Dagas Isa
Summary: AU type fic. Yuna and the others are brought to Tidus's Zanarkand where they must find him in order to return home, and perhaps in the process discover things they would rather not know.
1. Crimson Dreams

**Crimson Dreams**

Snow crunched under their shoes, and their clothes, made more for the warmer lowlands of Spira than the bitter cold of Gagazet's peaks protected them only very slight from the cold. Those who could call up any sort of fire magic did so, while the others counted on motion and fortitude to stop the deadly chill from settling in. Battle kept their blood racing and their muscles warm, but came with the price of inflicting injuries that added an extra sting to the cold.

In addition to the physical hardships, not a one of the pilgrims' inner worlds had escaped unscathed. Broken homes, broken dreams, broken faith, by journey's end, the summoner would not be the only one to have sacrificed herself at the world's feet.

The maester's pyreflies flew away from the cliff, sure to find some other place to torment them. The battle had been too close. Three of their number had suffered serious injury, and even the healthiest had wounds ready for treatment. One more fight in a seemingly endless series of drama. The Ronso in his number looked towards the base for a second before closing his eyes and forcing himself to look ahead.

A quiet despair lingered over the group as they left the battlefield with their wounds freshly cured. The mountain path narrowed, and just as suddenly the entire inner face of the mountain had changed.

Fayth, hundreds of them, occupied a slap of stone wall maybe a thousand feet across and reaching towards the summit. They all glowed with the faint light of a summoner calling them, and the summoner and her guardians marveled and wondered at an Aeon that could require so many Fayth.

The boy from Zanarkand fell first; his body suddenly collapsed as if the atmosphere itself could no longer support his body. Everyone rushed towards him, concerned for the safety of their friend.

One by one, or perhaps simultaneously, as no one could compare when exactly it happened, the rest of the pilgrims fell as well, the sight around their eyes turning black then red.

* * *

Ifrit clawed at her, from somewhere deep within the pit at her stomach, and both because and in spite of the pain, Yuna opened her arms, staff held high and called upon the beast. He emerged from the pyreflies, scattering them so intensely that it seemed as if they had exploded from him. Smoke tinged his breath, occasionally turning into a faint red flame, while he pawed the ground in search of action.

Yuna smiled, not a vicious smile, but the one of a fun-lover in for a challenge. A good fight and a test of her skills. She never remembered feeling this eagerness to battle, but here with Ifrit by her side, the crimson light showering down on the field and fiends all around, the rush of battle defeated everything, even tranquility.

"Go," she commanded to her Aeon.

* * *

Lulu set the world on fire one fiend at a time. Thunder, blizzard, water, they paled in comparison to the primal element. The first learned, the first mastered. The flames came to her so easily that her hands barely had to twitch to ignite the fiends. And her body wanted to do more than twitch; it wanted to move with confidence and authority.

Monsters never had the chance to rush at her, as soon as they left the protection of the horizon, they burned and rejoined the ground as ashes. Lulu became a great goddess, her magical fire both a weapon and a mantle.

Battle became her form of balance, turning unbalanced flesh into ashes and releasing trapped souls to the Farplane. Balance became her work and play, sweat breaking on her brow even as she savored the pure joy of exertion.

The beloved fire raged around her.

* * *

Strength. Pride. Spear. They became one and the same, as Kimahri jumped straight into the pack of fiends, ready to beat each of them off simultaneously. The beast inside taunted and provoked him into a state of welcome rage.

Ten years rewound and never happened. His youthful self stepped from the body of his hornless self and fought as a full Ronso warrior, ready to take on any threat and looking forward to the bloody melee.

Fiends came apart in Kimahri's claws like scraps of cloth. Every body his spear plunged into released a shock of primal pleasure, and even the injuries he sustained added to the heights of experience. From a wound on his own cheek, blood dripped into his mouth. He gave a toothy grin to the fiend wily enough to dodge his spear before he skewered it.

An animal had awoken.

* * *

Above all else, Rikku's hands were her treasure. They built; they comforted; they stole; and right now, they destroyed. Her claw, the one she'd designed herself when she set off with the salvage crew weighed reassuringly on her right hand ready to tear anything up that dared attack her.

Every fiend seemed to line up in front of her, ready to battle. Her body swayed in their rhythm, timing each punch with her lucky right hand to correspond with the leaping fiends as she twisted and dodged from their own sharp claws.

The clash of steel against bone became the beat for Rikku's battle dance. Her body moved of its own accord as if she'd spent every night of her life rehearsing in her sleep for the moment. She and two fiends moved back and forth in a contest of wits, strength, and agility Rikku knew she was born to win.

For she was her treasure.

* * *

How much of life is forcing death upon others? Auron wondered but briefly. His blade tingled, and his muscles felt a lovely strain he hadn't felt in the years since he left Spira. Though it had to be an illusion, he heard his own heartbeat in his ears.

That sound urged him on, gave him a passion he had never felt in ten years. The fiends became more than obstacles needing to be disposed of. They were opponents worthy of respect and honor. And so Auron did honor them with his katana. Each one died a noble death at his hand.

With every fiend he slew, the thumping in his ears grew louder; lungs took in sharp breaths of air tinged with metal and flame. A dragon approached, and Auron stepped forward a dragon slayer, a _living_ legend.

His own blood dripping on the counter proved it.

* * *

Thirty seconds left in the second half, and Wakka's teammates were nowhere in sight. The opponents on the other hand surrounded him completely. He must score. He must win this game. A spotlight glowed on him, the star player and now everything he had worked for in ten years of training came down to this one minute.

The players became fiends, and Wakka drove through them, knocking them away as they attacked. Everything fell aside; the goals opened for him, each one resembling a fiend as well. He did what any player of blitz would do with such an opportunity. One by one he lined up his shots. One by one he threw with his utmost force at each target and grinned each time he scored.

The buzzer sounded, and Wakka caught the ball after it bounced off the last fiend. He paused in anticipation, wondering if his effort had paid off. The red glare of the spot light faded and Wakka looked around searching for something.

All he could find was the darkness.

* * *

Yuna woke up with aching muscles, and hazy fragments of a dream. She and Ifrit conquering together. The sun barely touched the horizon, yet the day was far from cold, not at all like she recalled falling asleep. Actually, she didn't recall falling asleep at all, or working to the point of exhaustion before they fought.

Battles became too routine on their journey, and even after a foe as formidable as Seymour, it had only taken a little bit of healing to get everyone marching on again. Not since her late night sendings at Djose did she feel nearly so exhausted as she did this morning on Gagazet.

No, not at Gagazet. Her consciousness began to extend outside her own mind and situation to take the surroundings around her. Instead of rock and snow, Yuna sat on the tip of a small peninsula complete with the ruins of some small building, perhaps a lighthouse meant to guide ships into a safe home.

Her guardians lay around her, still in their slumber, all with minor injuries. Wakka and Lulu to her left. Rikku to her right, Auron right in front of her, and Kimahri on the far shore. The last guardian, Yuna couldn't find. Even with her faith in Yevon broken down, she still made the motion and prayed for his safety under the hope that something would hear her and watch over him.

So many mysteries to solve, but of first importance was to make sure her friends remained healthy. Her body ached, her mind could barely concentrate with all the questions that threatened to escape, but even less than being in a strange place and off course of her journey, Yuna didn't want to be alone, or see her friends hurt when she could fix it.

One by one, she knelt at her friends' sides, treating their wounds with utmost gentleness to allow them a few more precious moments of sleep. They had all used their resourced in battles, for her sake, and now she cared for them. Auron, Wakka, Lulu, Rikku, Kimahri. Had he been there, Yuna would have treated his battle wounds too, taking extra time with her care. Though she would never admit it directly; he had a special place in her heart, one that even now she didn't know whether she could give up.

The healings out of the way, and her duties performed for her guardians, Yuna sat on the shore and looked into the ocean around her and resisted the temptation to whistle while the others slept.

Instead, she thought of her dream, the one where Ifrit rained fire on the fiends while a much-too-aggressive Yuna cheered him. It had happened at this very camp, she remembered seeing the red light over this same ocean, and the pillar falling down right next to where Rikku lay now. Too many things worried her: The detail of the setting, so close to her surroundings now, the injuries on all of her friends, her lack of memory between reaching the wall of Fayth and waking up.

Had she...had she used Ifrit to fight when the rest of her friends were also fighting for their lives? Or worse, had she lashed out against them, thinking in her dream-state that they were fiends to be guided to the Farplane. Yuna could feel her face pale at the thought of the last, and even Ifrit from his seat within her seemed to have a tinge of restlessness.

Against the sounds of waves and wind, human noises alerted Yuna to her guardian's awakening. All looked slightly sore from the healings, and guilt flushed her face once again. The least she could do was apologize, and she gathered the threads of her courage and the support of the Aeons and composed her expression into a smooth facade of tranquility.

As she moved towards the center of the camp, her guardians gravitated towards her. Wakka and Rikku looked a confused. Auron seemed almost bothered by something. Lulu and Kimahri remained wary, but otherwise expressionless. None seemed openly angry with her, a blessing in itself.

"Everyone, I would just like to say, that I'm really sorry-" One-by-one Yuna looked around at the reactions of everyone. Rikku looking concerned, Wakka still confused, and the temper flaring in Lulu's eyes. Auron still seemed distracted, a strange state for him. Alone among her guardians, Kimahri remained neutral and alert, waiting for Yuna to speak before reacting, and even he seemed to have something off about his manner and appearance. "for any injuries or grief that I have caused you. Please, forgive me."

Complete silence greeted her apology. Perhaps a bird cawed overhead, but her guardians said nothing. To her mind made paranoid by this unfamiliar situation, their quiet condemned more than any stern words could. Tears, undignified, ran down her cheeks and blotched the skin.

Lulu finally spoke up, taking Yuna into her arms they way she used to when Yuna was small. "Do not cry. We don't blame you for something that you weren't involved in."

With various levels of noise, the others seemed to assent, and Yuna mentally chided herself for such fragility unbecoming especially in a summoner.

"But, I remember Ifrit and the fiends, I should have healed. I should have--"

"Yunie, last night, I had a weird dream. There were these fiends attacking me, and I went one-on-one with them, claw to claw." Rikku explained. "It's not your fault. I was separated from you guys."

Yuna remembered those claw marks on Rikku's arms, fitting injuries from Ifrit, but also completely congruent with a duel with various lupines. Could her dreams, as real as Yuna's have brought actual harm to her?

"I had those dreams too, ya. It was endgame blitz and I was going alone against more fiends than I can count. I don't remember getting hurt, but with odds like that, I'd have had to get injured, you know?"

Kimahri, Auron, and Lulu all confessed to the same type of dreams, different depending on personality and ability, but all the same. Fiends. Fighting alone. Yuna had survived unscathed, but Ifrit bore injuries from the fights. Now her heavy shame and guilt ebbed into an embarrassment for jumping to a conclusion before talking to the others.

"Instead of worrying about guilt, we need to find a way out of here. This isn't where we need to be." Auron reached through the tangle of complicating events to the important matter, getting back on their pilgrimage.

"Sir Auron, do you know where we are?" Yuna took his example, and focused through the confusion. Clarify the situation, put together pieces, and the path will become clear.

Auron looked around, towards the sea on one side, and the city on the other. "This is Zanarkand, but your destination lies elsewhere."

Yuna thought of the possibilities, and even in the gravity of the situation, a little bit of excitement made her heart leap up two steps in her chest. "Is this the other Zanarkand?"

"This is the Zanarkand where Jecht and his son were from, yes."

"So he is here?" Yuna asked.

Auron paused, giving his words a grave deliberation when he spoke. "I cannot say. If he is here, he is likely our key to returning."

"I see. Do you know where we can find him?"

"I can only speculate. If this is his world, then he will be somewhere that is important to him. His house, or the Blitzball dome."

"Could you lead us there?"

Auron nodded, his expression blank. "One more thing. Do not interact with people here, and do not get attached to this place."

Even if the warnings seemed to come from nowhere Yuna nodded along with the rest of her guardians.


	2. Players of Zanarkand

**Players to Zanarkand**

Zanarkand reminded Auron of an old toy he used to play with as a little boy. A wooden soldier, egg-shaped, that no matter how many times it was struck, returned to the same standing position with the same smile on his face.

In his life on Spira before his last encounter with Yunalesca, Auron had embraced the intended lesson: No matter how many times fallen, the victor remained the one who stood up at the end. His death, and the ten following years in Zanarkand revealed another side though, the one he thought about how as he led everyone through the half-rebuilt city.

The solider kept the same wan smile on his face, not because of determination, but from pure ignorance. Never knowing that it fell, it could never feel adversity; not know that, it could never march forward.

Zanarkand had been like that. People lived and died, but few ever knew what it meant to mourn. In the ten years he watched over Jecht's son, Auron had watched one funeral, held in the honor of Jecht; a man greater than the whole of the city. When his wife had died, shortly after hearing the news of Jecht's death, her son had mourned, but few others ever remembered a woman of her name or stature ever being born.

Then, he had thought the people were the toys set against the backdrop of a great city, This time around, Auron suspected the entire city played the same way. Not even three months after Sin-Jecht ravaged his home and nearly the entire city had been rebuilt in the original plan. Little ever changed in Spira, but even there, Sin provoked some motion in the community.

Not even a day returned to the city, and still it troubled him.

"Sir Auron," Yuna seemed to have cheered up from her early doldrums. "What was this place like, before he was carried away?"

She always attempted to disguise her longing and curiosity about the boy in her interest in his city, but Auron read the real question beneath it, the one he much preferred to answer. "The people here are cheerful with the lights all around them; he was no different. He followed in his father's footsteps, even when he so vocally despised Jecht. He cried a lot though, but he excelled despite of that."

Yuna's mouth stretched into a gentle smile. "Thank you, Sir Auron." She sounded like a well-trained pet having been given a treat. And just so, she showed her tidbit to more interested parties.

Zanarkand, a place so frivolous, that even he could no longer see the importance in anything; unless he tried.

Shortly after, Lulu matched his pace and separated herself from the pack of gossips behind her. He nodded in acknowledgment of her presence thought he didn't speak. If she had something to say or ask, she would, in her own time.

"You know something important about this place." In it's own right, it was a question they both knew the answer to, and, like Yuna, Lulu had other questions behind the statements, ones that he would answer, if only to confide in someone with the wisdom to understand.

"This place is not for us, no matter how seductive it might be. These people are different from us, and this world is different from Spira."

"You think there is danger here?" Lulu asked, keeping the tone of alarm down to a mute note.

Auron motioned to Kimahri, at his usual spot in the entourage watching for dangers others missed. "He has changed, as have I. Look at him."

At first Lulu seemed perplexed, though her eyes opened in understanding soon enough. "When did Kimahri regrow his horn?"

"When he entered his world, if his horn, or what it represents to him, is his strongest desire, then that is what this world granted him. None of us are aware of it, but the people here are, and that is all they are aware of."

"The castaway is different." Lulu spoke, from shock, but also from fact and observation.

"Ah, but he is Jecht's son, and he is very different from everyone here as well. People remembered Jecht, as they will remember his son. Ask everyone about his wife though, the mother, and you will find that such a woman never lived. They do not mourn their dead here in Zanarkand. There is no Farplane they visit to conjure up the spirits of loved ones."

They continued to walk along, their presence here mercifully ignored by the rabble in the street. Lulu nodded in agreement, lowering her voice. "You don't seem to like this Zanarkand very much."

For all her wisdom, sometimes she stated the obvious too many times. Though with the explaining she often had to do for Wakka and the others, he understood where the habit formed. "I find it frivolous. This whole world is little more than a drama. Entertainment while it exists, but once ended has brought nothing productive." He recalled his conversation with Seymour, and the similar disdain for his farce of marrying Yuna.

Lulu feel into silence again, and they each stepped forth, leading the way through a city that seemed too heavy for them in its utter lack of significance.

* * *

Cities always gave Kimahri a sense of claustrophobia and weakness. Ears that could hear soft footsteps or a nose that could pick up a trail over snowy rocks meant little in a place so crowded with sensory overload that he could become sick if he actually paused to take it in.

Everyone rushed by; neither caring nor noticing that people with strange clothes and one with strange shapes roamed among them. No one paused in their conversation, or looked up when they passed by. While Kimahri never believed himself to be an expert on human forms and culture, it still made his fur go on edge.

A rumbling sound, so low as to be felt rather than heard, unnerved him even more. The others moved along almost merrily, none of them noticing the danger approaching. His pupils dilated and his muscles tensed. If the menace approached Yuna, Kimahri would keep her safe.

The faint sound grew higher in pitch and louder, as it approached from behind Kimahri. No time to think, he pounced Yuna and pinned her to the ground when the blur of a machina gone crazy passed by. A child's high-pitched scream as the sound grew lower and softer again.

Kimahri stepped up, releasing Yuna from his grasp. "Kimahri, sorry." he said, stepping back to give Yuna room.

"No, it's all right Kimahri. Thank you..." her attention switched from Kimahri to the injured child just ahead of her. "Oh no. I have to..."

Auron stepped forward. "Yuna. Don't heal him."

While Kimahri had respected and understood the older guardian's wisdom, his duty was to support Yuna in any endeavor, so he stepped between Yuna and Auron, knowing that she would defy him.

As she did. "I'm not going to leave anyone injured. Not when it's my fault." Staff in hand, she walked towards the hurt child, clearly intent on healing any wounds inflicted upon him. Kimahri followed her.

The hover had struck the little boy hard, and while a woman who could have been his mother cried, the majority of the crowds remained apathetic, going about with daily transactions as if the child had merely tripped and scraped his knee.

"I'll take care of him." Yuna said. The woman in tears nodded, and stood aside so Yuna could kneel closer to the child. Kimahri stood at a distance, while the rest of the party moved in closer to watch the healings. All but Auron, who turned away and looked over the bridge.

The light and soothing music that came from healing spells enveloped the boy, and when it ebbed, he stood up, coughing. Kimahri could see scrapes across the child's face, and some blood still reached his nose; however, he should still be all right.

"Thank you." The woman bowed to Yuna, "If there's anything we can do to repay you."

"Oh no. It was my pleasure."

"Are you sure?"

"Actually," Yuna said, lowering her eyes, "We're searching for someone, maybe you could help us."

The woman nodded, taking the boys hand in hers. "I'll tell you what I know, miss."

"He's the star player of the Zanarkand Abes."

The woman shook her head. "I wish I could tell you, but to tell the truth, everyone's been at a loss since he failed to show up for that game against the Duggles three months ago. 'Course, being a Duggles fan myself, I was a bit happy for the forfeit. Just a bit. No one's seen him since."

"I see."

"He lived in a houseboat down at block A. Go northeast a bit and there's the Zanarkand Dome. Just northeast of that is a large harbor and a row of houseboats. His is the first one. Now if you'll excuse us, we still have errands to run." The woman, who had been so concerned when her son was in peril, seemed to have forgotten everything that had happened only a few minutes ago.

"No, wait!" Yuna called out to them, and Kimahri ran forward to stop them until Yuna changed her mind. "It's okay, Kimahri, let them go."

He obeyed, and stopped pursuit, even though he could catch them in two strides, three or four at the most as they retreated. His summoner looked a bit crushed at the encounter, so different than how a similar situation would have ended in Spira.

"Please forgive me, Sir Auron." Yuna bowed to him.

"I understand. It is your nature to help others. You could not have known." Auron turned away from the bridge, looked both Yuna and Kimahri in the eyes and moved on. "There's no time to waste, we need to find Jecht's son and get out of here."

Everyone walked in complete silence. Even Rikku and Wakka, ever talkative, fell to the hush that descended upon them. Kimahri felt the shame now. For defying Auron, who after Yuna, was the next person he owed his loyalty to. If not for him, Kimahri would never have been able to find the courage to leave Gagazet and find a place in the world after losing his horn. And for not shielding Yuna. She was a strong girl, always had been, from the first time he met her in Bevelle, but even he could tell how the pilgrimage, and now this voyage into Zanarkand had cracked her, made her fragile.

For the first time in ten years, Kimahri felt unworthy of the title of warrior. His people. Yuna. Who would he fail next?

He followed the rest with that question weighing on his mind.


End file.
